From the acknowledgments from the Nicole Galland novel The Master of the Revels. Is the mentioned Andrew Riggsby by any chance @antiquethought.bsky.social?

Oh, good catch! I linked the wrong picture. That one's Hadrian making the same Augustus/Capricorn connection. For Nerva doing that, check out this picture.

Here's Severus' contemporary Pescennius Niger using Capricorns in the same way. And reading Severus' Capricorns as a connection to Augustus fits what else we know of Severus, starting with his love of astrology. He even picked his wife based on her horoscope! 8/11

Here's a coin of Nerva's showing Augustus on one side and on the other a Capricorn alongside Nerva's name and titles 7/11

These Capricorns should be seen as allusions to Augustus. As Suetonius tells us, "Augustus soon had so much faith in his destiny that he publicized his horoscope and issued a silver coin with the sign of the constellation Capricorn." 6/11

When scholarship noted them, Capricorns were considered an honor for Severus' favored XIVth legion, whose emblem was a Capricorn. But Capricorns appear on coins for every legion & are consistently on coins for the XIVth & Legio III Italica's, whose emblem wasn't a Capricorn. 5/11

The result's a mess: multiple legions are shown with the same standard, while different coins for the same legion show different standards. Odder still, Capricorns jut out of some standards but aren't noted in the Roman Imperial Coinage descriptions. 4/11

My article The Legionary Coins of Septimius Severus is now out in the Journal of Ancient History & Archaeology! This 🧵unpacks how these coins show us an early stage in how Severus presented himself to the empire, how he linked himself to Augustus, & even the response he got 1/11

Proofs day!

In classes, I use Prima Porta Augustus to talk about the link between art & politics. This study abroad program didn’t do the Vatican, but while in Rome I got to see the statue in person—and so did multiple students, who showed me their pics of doing the pose with Augustus.

It studies "legionary coins" (coins with a legionary eagle & military standards) to better understand the 68-9 civil war, how emperors communicated with their army with coins, & how those coins also framed the relationship between an emperor & his rivals/predecessors.